


A Toast to Innocence

by Jezunya



Series: The Snow Turned Into Rain [1]
Category: Community
Genre: Bittersweet, Divorce, F/M, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Inspired by Music, Moving On, Present Tense, Written during the mid season 3 hiatus, backdated, but not really, originally posted on ff.net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jezunya/pseuds/Jezunya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been fourteen years since they all graduated, twelve since she got married, and thirteen since she's seen him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For my parents.

  
_We drank a toast to innocence_   
_We drank a toast to time_   
_Reliving in our eloquence_   
_Another ‘auld lang syne’_   


“Same Old Lang Syne”  
Dan Fogelberg

 

She’s reaching into one of the large freezer bays for a bag of sweet peas, balancing the spring-loaded door open with her shoulder, when she feels the light touch at her elbow. It takes only a second for her to glance over, but in that single moment she becomes aware of several facts. First, the touch is hesitant, shy even, but not weak. Second, there is something about the sound of the person’s breath, close but not so close as to be considered rude or intrusive, that tickles her memory with the fact that it _used_ to be familiar. And third, as her face turns toward him, she breathes in a scent that she could never, ever forget.

He’s pulled his hand back as she looks up at him, and isn’t quite smiling when her gaze finds his. He’s different, his hair dusted with grey, his skin weathered with subtle wrinkles that pull downward now rather than the laugh lines that had begun to develop back when she knew him. His eyes are the same, though – or they’re the same as what she remembers from when she first met him, before they became friends: guarded, uneasy, and trying desperately not to let it show. The open, honest eyes that she came to know and love are gone once more, retreated back inside the protective cocoon that he thinks he can fool the world with.

She can only stare at him for a long moment as she takes in all the little changes, and then she sees his throat convulse with a rough swallow and his expression turns a little sheepish and a little more hesitant.

“Hey… Annie… It’s Jeff. From… From Greendale?”

She blinks and realizes he must think she doesn’t recognize him, but how could she not? He was the center of her world for far too long for that.

"Jeff. Of course," she says, trying to smile as she reaches up to brush a stray strand of hair from her face. They stand there looking at each other for one long, awkward moment, not sure what's supposed to come next, and then with a mental little _Ah, to hell with it,_ Annie rushes forward to envelop him in a tight hug.

She'd forgotten about the grocery basket swinging precariously from her arm, its delicate balance overturning with her sudden movement. Before Jeff can even reciprocate her embrace, the clatter of her few items hitting the floor makes them both jump. She steps away from him and crouches down, setting the basket beside her on the linoleum and noting that one of its handles actually popped out of its socket, causing the spill. She goes about gathering her groceries and placing them back in the carrier, because even if it’s broken, it’s the only one she has, so what else can she do?

She tries not to think about how that’s a metaphor for certain other aspects of her life.

Jeff hesitates for only an instant, and then he is down on the floor next to her, grabbing up the oranges and the odd can of soup that had begun to roll away. He swivels back toward her, big hands laden with the strangest, most mundane things in the world, his face so shy and unsure, and she can’t help the laugh that suddenly bubbles up out of her. Annie sits back against the cold freezer glass and laughs until her stomach hurts and she feels tears squeezing out of the corners of her eyes. Jeff, first confused and then shaking his head, ends up slumped next to her in a similar state, long arms stretched out on his bent knees, laughing at the ridiculousness of the entire situation.

After a minute or two, one of the kids that stocks the shelves pokes his head around the end of the aisle, wondering what all the commotion is about, and she quickly tries to sober up, swatting Jeff on the arm to get his attention.

He nods, following her line of sight, and starts climbing to his feet, still shaking his head and chuckling under his breath. He offers her a hand up, and as she takes it she’s struck with the sense that something is off, something’s missing, and then when she remembers a second later, she feels a little sick at having forgotten, and, without thinking, mumbles quietly, “Milord,” just as he drops her hand.

Jeff’s eyes go wide, locking with hers and looking just as unsteady as when he’d first approached her, looking almost ready to bolt. But then he takes a breath and shoves his hands into his coat pockets, and seems to just generally refuse to acknowledge what just came out of her mouth. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your shopping,” he says, the apologetic tone sounding just slightly forced. “I just saw you down the aisle, and…” He shrugs.

“It’s so good to see you, Jeff,” she replies sincerely. Because it is. It really, really is. She picks up her half-full grocery basket, holding it by the sides now instead of the busted handles. “I’m about done here, anyway, so…” She nods toward the front of the store, and smiles when he falls into step next to her, following her through the checkout line and out into the chilly December weather.

They stand in front of the grocer’s big plate glass doors, at a loss once more. Annie can see her car from here, and she can already feel the visit drawing to an end, slipping through her fingers like so much sand.

“Well,” Jeff starts, shrugging deeper into his coat, and she knows he’s about to leave.

“Do you want to get a drink?” she blurts, then immediately feels awkward and embarrassed at the surprise that blinks across his face. “We can… catch up…”

He purses his lips. “Don’t you need to get home?” he asks quietly, gesturing vaguely to the plastic grocery bag hanging from her wrist. Annie looks down at the bag and understands everything he’s trying to say and everything that the soup and new toothbrushes and frozen peas represent.

But she needs this, right now.

“It’ll keep,” she says, suddenly determined, and Jeff looks almost intrigued or at least like he’s willing to humor her. Not quite smiling, he finally nods. “My car’s this way,” she says, tilting her head to one side. “Do you need to…?”

“I actually walked here,” he answers. “Just dashed out of the office to grab something quick to eat.”

The fact that he’s been so close, all this time, tickles the back of her mind and the backs of her eyes, but she pushes the thought away, along with the emotions it brings, tucks them safely away back in their box where they can’t hurt anyone. “Alright, well.” She sets off toward her little blue minivan, and he follows a step behind her. When they get there, he waits for her to unlock it and then climb into the driver’s seat before he opens the passenger door and follows suit. Her groceries are stowed in the center console between the two front seats and she goes to turn the key in the ignition, but then pauses, looking back up at him. “You know, I just realized… I don’t actually know any bars around here.”

Jeff blinks and thinks for a second and then admits, “Actually, I don’t think I do either…” She wants to laugh again, because this is so absurd, and Jeff Winger is sitting in the front seat of her minivan, and they can’t even get ‘catching up’ right. He just frowns, thinking, and then reaches for the door latch again. “Wait here,” he says, and in a few quick strides he disappears back inside the grocery store.

There’s a small part of her, the reasonable part, the dutiful part, the part that’s still attached to the ring on her fourth finger even if her supposed other half isn’t attached to his anymore – that part tells her she should just drive away. Right now. Just forget about this stupid coincidental meeting and this crazy idea that maybe if she just sits and talks with him this one last time then… She doesn’t even know. She doesn’t know what she wants out of this, much less what she expects. But she doesn’t put the van in reverse and she doesn’t move an inch.

He comes back just a few minutes later and lets himself into the car again, holding up a six-pack of cheap beer in one hand as he pulls the door closed behind him again. “It was the first thing I found,” he says in explanation, shrugging. And then he starts to look around.

There hasn’t been a babyseat in her car for quite a few years, but she assumes the minivan speaks well enough for itself. There are a few crayons scattered on the floor, and a soccer ball is visible in the back seat. Jeff takes it all in for a few short moments, and all she can do is study her hands on the steering wheel and try not to see the sad, wistful twist to his mouth and eyes. He finally faces front again, looking over at her. “How many?” he asks quietly, his tone nothing but polite.

“Three,” she answers. “Two boys and a girl.”

He nods and forces a smile. “That’s great, Annie.”

“Yeah, they’re… they’re good kids.”

He nods again and reaches down to pull a can out of the sixpack, then a second one, which he offers to her. She accepts but simply holds it, the cold metal beginning to gather condensation and making her fingers go numb. “How long have you been in Denver?” he asks casually, popping his can open with a quiet spit of carbonation.

“It’ll be… eight years this May,” she says, having to think about it for a second. She rolls the beer can back and forth between her hands, trying to remember where each of those years went, and then, frowning, decides to open it. She takes a small sip, not really tasting the bitter liquid as it washes down her throat. “You?” But she already knows the answer.

“Almost thirteen,” he confirms. He’d accepted an offer to join a rival law firm in the city the same week she’d started seeing her then-boyfriend now-husband, Robert. They were married a year later, and he hadn’t responded to the wedding invitation she’d made sure to send to all of her old classmates. “So what brought you to the city?” he asks, and it’s just the type of small talk she knows they both hate but it’s the definition of ‘catching up’ and is the only way to keep the conversation going, so she answers.

“My husband’s work,” she says. They had met through the medical administration program at Greendale, and he’d gone on to work for a local gym in town for a few years after graduating. “He’s a health manager for Gold’s Gym. On the corporate side, though.” Because it’s always important to specify that he works in the corporate offices; wouldn’t want anyone to think he actually worked in the gym and dealt with people and their problems on a day to day basis.

“Right,” Jeff nods. “Sounds interesting.” It doesn’t, but that is the polite thing to say after all. She can appreciate the effort he’s putting in, anyway.

“What firm are you with now?” she asks next. The beer is making her stomach burble and her nose tingle with the carbonation, though her tiny sips haven’t been enough for the alcohol to touch her yet.

“Wolfram and Hart,” he says.

“Oh. I’ve seen their commercials.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. How are things going there?”

He takes a drink before answering. “I made partner about ten years back. Senior VP for the Denver area now,” he says, smiling at her in a way that says he thinks it should be a meaningful accomplishment, but he just isn’t sure.

“Congratulations,” she says, smiling in return, and really is happy for him.

“Yeah. Thanks. It’s… It’s everything I wanted out of this career.” He doesn’t say ‘out of life,’ and she’s suddenly very aware of the way he’s looking over at her, his eyes soft and sad and she can’t even take it in, she can’t process that kind of emotion coming from him, after all this time.

“That’s good,” she says tightly, clicking her fingers against the metal of the beer can and just barely looking at him out of the corner of her eye. She forces herself to keep soldiering on, “I only ended up using my degree for a year or two. After Josh was born, I never went back to work.”

“Your oldest?”

“Yes,” she smiles genuinely now, thinking of her boy, with his messy brown hair and freckles and boundless energy. Thinking of how he’s one of the only things she can fight for anymore, one of the three things to come from her marriage that she wouldn’t trade for the world. “He just turned ten.”

Jeff raises his can in a mock-toast. “Many happy returns to him. And to your other two.”

She clinks her can against his, takes a small sip, and then, not thinking until she’s halfway through the sentence, supplies, “Katie and… and Jeffery.”

Jeff stares at her hard for several seconds and she knows that once upon a time a look like that from him would have had a blush flaming all the way up from her chest to her hairline, but now she can’t seem to find the energy to be embarrassed anymore. “Well,” he says at last, very quietly, “I guess that deserves another toast.”

She doesn’t respond or lift her beer again, but he raises his toward the ceiling briefly and then throws the rest of the drink back, finishing it in one long swallow. He sets the empty can on the floor next to the other, still unopened, four.

“Jeff…” She looks over at him, but he’s gazing out the windshield, or at the passenger airbag compartment in front of him, or at something else altogether that she can’t see. His hands are braced on his knees, and for the first time she notices that there is no wedding band on his finger, nor even the tanline of one recently removed. She wonders, but can’t quite find the words to ask.

“You know,” he says at last, pulling himself back from wherever he’d gone for the last minute or two, “when I saw you in there… You haven’t changed a day.” He shakes his head, looking frustrated, like that wasn’t what he’d wanted to say, but was the only thing that would come out.

“I have,” she disagrees, because being married for twelve years and having three babies changes a person, and not just physically.

“Your eyes are just as blue as I remember,” he says suddenly, and when she looks up he’s smiling in that soft, wistful way again, but his eyes are bitter, haunted. He looks back at the airbag, at whatever he was seeing before and continues. “I thought I must have exaggerated them in my memories, but they’re just as big and blue and sincere as I remembered.”

She’s caught off guard by the honesty in his words and especially his expression. Her fingers clench tight around her beer can, and she can’t think of anything to say for a second or two. “Not much of a Disney princess anymore though,” she finally mumbles, and takes another sip, not looking back at him.

“Yes, you are,” he tells her, his voice firm, almost offended. “You always will be. And anyone who says differently is a moron not worth your time.”

She winces, his words finding just the right places to slice into her, hitting directly on truths she’s known for a while but isn’t ready to face yet. Not now, not right before the holidays, not when she needs to be strong and steady and constant, at least for her children’s sakes. “Can we talk about something else—”

He sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Sorry,” he says roughly, and then, “I overstepped my bounds. And I think I may have worn out my welcome here.”

She looks over at him, her eyes widening. “What? No, I didn’t mean—” But he stops her with a quick shake of his head and a small grimace that she thinks was probably intended to be a reassuring smile.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he apologizes again. He sighs, then adds, quietly, “I really am sorry.” And she doesn’t know what he’s sorry about, now or thirteen years ago, his own words or the way her life and marriage have gone even though he knows nothing about it and had no hand in it. There’s a beat, a space of silence in which they’re both just sitting there, peaceful, that she thinks – she hopes – might go on forever, but then he nods and touches his forehead like he’s tipping his hat to her, and says, “Well, it’s been a pleasure, Miss Annie Edison.”

She doesn't correct him, partly because he has no way of knowing what her married name is, but mostly because her marriage has just about run its course, and talking about it right now, with him, is the one thing she cannot let herself do. She thinks of the divorce attorney's business card buried somewhere in the bottom of her purse, out of sight but never far from her mind. She hasn’t wanted to admit it, but the truth is she's been circling around the idea for weeks now, like water in a drain, going down, down, the end still a ways off but ultimately inevitable.

“It really was good to see you, Jeff,” she says in response, not bothering to hide the sadness, the loss and weariness, from her voice anymore, and is rewarded with a kind of half-smile from him, rueful and regretful and touched with that old self-loathing she remembers him always trying so hard to hide from their little study-group-turned-family. Some part of her, the part that never left Greendale and has been bound and gagged in the very deepest, darkest recesses of her mind all this time, wants to wipe that look off his face. But she can’t. She knows she can’t.

He pops his door open and starts to get out, but then turns back one more time, facing her sideways from the passenger seat. She can’t move, can’t even breathe, and when he gently takes her right hand in one of his larger ones, she doesn’t resist.

“Milady,” he whispers, raising her hand to his lips, and there’s a finality to his tone that sends a shock of pain through her chest unlike anything she’s felt in the last decade and a half, unlike anything she’s _let_ herself feel. He’s letting go already, but before he can take a single step away from her, she yanks him back down and presses her lips to his, once, twice, chaste and nostalgic, and then after a moment of shock or hesitation or whatever the hell goes through this man’s head, he’s kissing her back, passionately, desperately, tragically.

And suddenly it’s like nothing else matters and she’s seeing stars burst behind her eyelids and her skin is on fire just like it used to be whenever he touched her, so very long ago, and she can’t think but to know that this, _this_ is what she’s been telling herself she wasn’t missing, this is what she should have fought for all those years ago and—

They pull apart and both start apologizing at the same moment, and then both seem to think better of it, simply staring into each other’s eyes, Jeff’s big hands cupping either side of her face. She can feel her eyes stinging and she knows it’s not the icy draft from the open door but she’s not sure she can face the thoughts, the hopes, that she let herself drown in for that single moment.

Jeff fumbles in his pocket for a second and then presses a stiff slip of paper into her palm – his business card. "Call," he rasps, staring into her eyes from only a few inches away. "Any time of the day or night, anything you need, just—"

She nods, closing her hands around the card, holding his gaze. "I will." She shouldn’t. She _can’t_. She will.

He wants to kiss her again – she can see it in his eyes, in the way that he leans forward almost imperceptibly, and she’s caught between how much she wants him to, wants him to kiss her and never stop, and thoughts of the diamond ring on her finger and her children and the home she’s built— But he stops himself, puffs out a breath of warm air, not quite a sigh, and pulls himself away. He stands outside for one long moment, looking in at her with his hand on the doorframe, and then without another word in parting, he closes the door between them and turns and walks away, his hands deep in his pocket and his head bowed against the wind and the snow.

Annie stares down at her hands, and then numbly slips the card into her purse. She puts the car in reverse, and pulls out of the parking lot, and she knows nothing is going to be the same after this but it has to be. She needs it to be. But she can’t just sit there and watch him walk away, not again, and she absolutely cannot risk him turning around, risk him coming back, not after everything that has and hasn’t happened between them.

She makes it two blocks and around a corner before she can't see the road anymore through her tears.

She pulls over in front of a Walgreens and sits there for nearly an hour as the snow flurries turn to pattering rain drops outside. Finally, when her sobs have died away and her eyes are red and puffy but clear, she starts the car again, pulls out, and goes on with her life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want everyone to know that, originally, I was going to end the story here and leave it at that. Luckily, though, I can't abide anything short of a happy ending ;)


	2. Chapter 2

She doesn't call him on Christmas, for which he is grateful. He wouldn't want to have to hear the noises of a happy family behind her, children and a husband and a home that does not include him. He doesn't want to think about it, but he can't stop.

She doesn't call on New Year's either, and, again, he's glad. All he would have been able to think about was her lips against his at midnight and how blindingly, hatefully jealous he is of the man who gets to hold her in that moment instead. He doesn't want to think about those things, so of course he does.

It's two weeks into January, and he's spent the last month and a half reiterating all of his old mantras and mental exercises, reteaching himself to let go – let go of his anger, let go of his cares, and most of all let go of her.

Two weeks into January, five weeks and three days since he saw her, and that's when he finally gets the call.

It's an unknown number, of course, and it shows up on his phone just as he's wrapping up a meeting with the partners under him. He cuts his closing statement short and rushes from the conference room, answering just as the phone vibrates a third time, because even if the device doesn't recognize the number, he _knows_.

"Annie?" he says in lieu of a proper greeting. He's breathless and maybe overeager, but he isn't disappointed.

"Jeff," she answers back, and he almost has to stop walking right there in the middle of the hallway just from hearing her voice again. And then she goes on, "I'm getting divorced."

 


	3. Chapter 3

They meet in a Denny’s halfway between his office and her house. It’s late March now, and she called that morning to tell him that the divorce had been finalized the evening before. She’s not celebrating the fact that she’s no longer Mrs. Robert Lyman, but she’s not exactly mourning either.

She’s nursing a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream when he walks in, sees her sitting in a booth by the window, and comes striding over. His coat and scarf are damp from the first of the spring rains outside, and he isn’t carrying a briefcase. He slides into the seat across from her and just stares for a moment.

“Are you okay?” he blurts then, his glove-clad fingers gripping the edge of the table tight, the classy, expensive leather squeaking against the faux-wood. Before she can answer, the waitress approaches, having seen the new arrival. Jeff orders a coffee, black, just to get her to leave.

He looks back at her as soon as they’re alone again. Annie idly stirs her hot chocolate, mixing in some more of the cream floating on top before answering him. “Yes,” she breathes, finally meeting his gaze. “I think I really am.”

“And the kids? How are they doing?” he asks, and she’s touched at the concern in his voice for the three little people he’s never met and has no connection to in the world except through her. She thinks back on the one other time she called him since January: It was halfway through, when things had started to get nasty and Robert had been threatening to push for full custody of their children. Her lawyer had managed to talk his lawyer out of it, but still, it was a terrifying time and Jeff’s soothing voice over the phone had been the only thing to get her through it in one piece.

She nods. “They’re… adjusting. I think it helped that we never had screaming fights in front of them.” She pauses, thinking about that statement. “We never had _any_ screaming fights, actually. I can’t really remember ever fighting at all,” she murmurs. Not like her parents did, that’s for sure. Maybe she did make some of their mistakes – like marrying a man she knew she didn’t really want to spend the rest of her life with – but she was at least determined not to drag her children into the mess she’d made. There would be no tug-of-war over their affections, no manipulations, no trying to use them just to win a petty argument.

Jeff frowns at her words and looks away to remove his gloves, finger by finger. Annie watches him for a moment but then goes on.

“Josh didn’t even seem surprised when we told him,” she says. Her firstborn is mature beyond his years, wild and adventurous sure, but also wise, contemplative, more so than any ten year old should be. “It was like our marriage was a cat that crawled under the porch to die, and the kids had all seen it coming and just accepted it as a matter of course.” If anything, her daughter Katie seems to have taken it as an opportunity: two birthdays from now on, sixteen Hanukkah celebrations instead of eight, maybe even some extra gifts and special trips, just because each of her parents would see their time with her as _so_ special and rare now. Conniving Katie, her parents call her, and Annie has always thought that someday she will make a wildly successful lawyer.

Jeff is still staring down at the tabletop, his brows knit, looking like he’s thinking very hard about something.

Annie sighs and curls her fingers around her hot chocolate, warming her hands. She’s not sure why she’s still talking, and about this of all things, but it’s a relief to get it out, to be done with it. And besides, Jeff will tell her what he’s thinking when he’s good and ready. "It wasn't… I mean, he wasn't… _bad_. A bad husband. He didn't hit me or come home drunk or anything like that. He just… stopped coming home at all, after a while.”

She pauses and Jeff nods at this, though he’s still studying the fake woodgrain between his hands. In his mind, she knows, fathers and husbands should get gone and stay that way. She can’t begrudge him that view, considering he spent his childhood surviving the alternative. “Then last fall, I found out he'd been having an affair with a woman in his office for the last four years or so,” she says.

He hisses in a sharp breath through his teeth and finally looks back up at her, and she can't help the old smile that pulls at her lips, because him hating any man in her life is such a familiar sensation that she thinks if she closes her eyes she could almost pretend they were back in their old study room and the last fourteen years hadn't been spent convincing herself she didn't miss him. But either way, they’re here now, and he’s still jumping to defend her honor, even after all this time, and… it’s nice.

"The thing I realized, though," she presses on, tapping her fingers against the sides of her mug and irrationally smiling down into the cooling brown liquid, "was that I didn't _care_. I didn't feel betrayed or like I had lost anything. I know my children will be affected by us breaking up, but I can't even be angry at him for that. Our marriage fell apart because I didn't love him. Because I never loved him. He just realized it before I did."

“I thought—” Jeff says suddenly, pulling her gaze back up to his face. “I mean, I was afraid that—” But he chokes on the words, and then the waitress walks up with his coffee and he’s given a quick reprieve as he thanks her and they decline to order any food at the moment. The girl walks away and they face each other again.

Jeff’s eyes are tight, his expression cautious and she recognizes the look as meaning he’s on the verge of hoping, of believing in something, but he can’t quite let himself yet. He licks his lips. “I was afraid you did this because of me,” he says at last, holding her gaze, his words quiet and steady. “I was afraid I’d broken up a perfectly happy family.”

 _Oh_. Anne feels her expression soften and she reaches across the table for his hand. He looks at her for a second, and then meets her halfway, his fingers curling around hers, warm and solid. “No,” she says. “I didn’t do it because of you. You didn’t cause this. But, seeing you last December…” She trails off and squeezes his hand, reassuring them both at once, and finds she can be nothing but honest from here on out. “Seeing you that day… I think it was the push I needed. The reminder of what it was like to be happy, what it felt like to be with someone I love.”

His fingers are suddenly tight around hers, almost painfully so, and she knows when she looks up at his face again that it’s because she said _love_ , not _loved._ His eyes are intense, unwavering, and focused solely on her, and that hope that he’s so afraid of has pushed its way to the surface again. “You…” He clears his throat, looks down at their joined hands. “You really think we can do this?” He doesn’t need to say the last part aloud: _After all this time?_

She squeezes his hand again, holding on tight. “We can… We can do whatever’s comfortable. For both of us,” she says, smiling encouragingly when he meets her gaze once more.

He nods, thoughtfully.

“Even if it’s just this,” she adds, looking around at the cheerily lit restaurant with its plastic menus and worn carpet. “Just having coffee once in a while to catch up.” She shrugs, smiling slightly, because she really would be okay with just that. But Jeff’s eyes narrow suddenly and his mouth presses into a thin, flat line, and Annie can’t help thinking that this must be the look he gives rival attorneys when he sees a key flaw in their argument.

“No,” he says succinctly. “I don’t think that’s going to work for me.”

She blinks, and for half a second she wonders if she’s been reading this wrong the whole time, if he’s going to throw everything she’s said back in her face now, pull away and leave her with nothing. But he hasn’t let go of her hand, so she just takes a breath and asks, “What do you mean?”

Jeff’s still studying her with those shrewd eyes. “I mean,” he says carefully, evenly, but she can hear something else in his tone, something that sounds like determination and maybe even anger, “that I’m done sitting back and accepting whatever consolation prize I get handed. And I’m really done with watching _you_ do that.”

Some small voice in the back of her mind is incredulous and bemoaning the fact that they’re fighting again already, but she just can’t help herself. “ _Consolation_ prize?” she echoes, keeping her voice low but unable to completely mask the shrill note in it.

Jeff’s brows draw together, looking suddenly confused. “Annie, wait, I think you may have—”

“I’m sorry you’re getting a thirty-six year old divorced mother of three,” she says, her voice heavy and angry and rising with every word, “instead of a perky twenty-two year old who follows you around like a little lost kitten, Jeff, but you know what, _you’re the one who left!_ ” She draws in a deep breath when she’s finished and is somewhat surprised to find that she’s not sorry, because the words were there inside of her all along and they needed to come out, they needed to be expelled from where they’d been festering for the last fourteen years.

But when she meets Jeff’s gaze again, she is sorry. He’s watching her with an expression unlike any she’s ever seen on him before: open, unguarded, vulnerable. So sad, so full of remorse. In a word, heartbroken. And she’s the one who did that.

He swallows with some difficulty, his eyes drifting away, looking anywhere but at her. “I know,” he says quietly, roughly. “I deserved that.”

“No,” she tries to disagree with him, “I shouldn’t have—” But he shakes his head, and she falls silent, because even if she’s sorry for hurting him, it doesn’t change the truth of her words. She looks down at his hand, still clinging to hers, and asks, very softly, “Why _did_ you leave?”

He makes a strange sound then, somewhere between a hiccup and a bitter laugh and a quickly, expertly covered sob. “Honestly? I thought I was doing you a favor.” He sobers, swallowing again. “That’s what I told myself, anyway. I thought… once we weren’t seeing each other every day at school, once you could… get some distance… I thought you’d get over me. That you could finally forget about me and be in a healthy relationship.”

She shakes her head, squeezing his hand again, not quite able to laugh about it yet. “Look how well that turned out.”

He smiles slightly, bitterly, squeezing her hand back, and then places his other on top of it, cupping her smaller hand in between both of his. “That’s exactly what I mean, though,” he says, “about consolation prizes. I can’t… I can’t do that again. I can’t step back and let you go, even if I’ve somehow convinced myself it’s what’s best for you. I can’t. Not again.”

Her eyes are on their hands, on the way his thumb is stroking over the backs of her knuckles. “I never wanted you to.”

“I know,” he answers, looking back up at her at last, and there’s a very small smirk playing on his lips now. “But I’m a high-handed jerk who thinks he knows more than everybody else. Or did you forget that?”

She does laugh then, shaking her head, her chest tight.

“Look, if we’re gonna do this,” Jeff goes on, serious once more, “then I’m in, one hundred percent. One hundred and _ten_ percent. None of this holding each other at arm’s length, or worrying about _propriety_ , or what anyone else thinks, because we’ve played by their rules for too goddamned long, and I’m— I’m _done_. With all of it.”

She can’t help it – she supposes from an outsider’s perspective she must look rather ridiculous, acting impulsively and wildly like a woman half her age, but then age has always been a funny concept for Annie, and besides what do any of them know anyway? – she all but leaps forward, pulling Jeff in by their still-connected hands, and seals her lips to his. Jeff’s mouth opens under hers, eager and forceful and everything she’s wanted and missed and longed for and he’s really _right here_.

They break apart after a few heated moments, but they don’t go far. Their faces are only a few inches apart and they’re both breathing hard when Annie whispers, “I guess I’m in too.”

Jeff smiles, his eyes literally lighting up. “One hundred and ten percent?”

Annie squints one eye at him, but it’s with amusement. “You know, by definition, ‘percent’ means you can’t have more than—” But Jeff just kisses her again and she is more than happy to forget whatever it was she was saying.

She sighs contentedly as they part this time. “Well, it will be nice for Jeffery to get to know his namesake,” she comments, trying to make it sound off-hand, casual, but she’s watching Jeff’s face closely through her lashes and she isn’t disappointed when his eyes pop open wide.

His expression seems to be equal parts fear and excitement. “I don’t have much experience with kids,” he warns her.

“Don’t worry. I have enough for the both of us,” she smiles. “Besides, Jeffery’s the nice one.”

He gives her a bemused smile. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” she nods. “He was the quietest baby you ever saw, he didn’t even _have_ the ‘terrible twos,’ and now, he’s four and I swear, he is the sweetest, most easy-going kid you will ever meet.”

“Wow,” Jeff says, sounding impressed. Then, “Guess I’ll have to teach him a thing or two about trouble-making,” and laughs when Annie swats his shoulder. He captures her hand with one of his, holding them both together between them on the tabletop. She curls her fingers around his, holding on. “So this is really it, huh?” he asks, and his eyes are soft and full of hope when he looks at her.

She nods and smiles. “This is really it.”

His smile broadens and he lifts one of her hands. “Milday,” he grins, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Milord,” she answers, her smile wide and warm and – for the first time in a long, long time – really, truly happy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue left to go now :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This last part could be called an epilogue, though it's probably more of a prologue... Or maybe an anti-logue... You'll see ;)

“Jeff.”

He’s glaring out through the glass doors after Annie, where she disappeared into the crowded Greendale hallways only moments before, angry and near tears and so, _so_ frustrating— But he manages to pull his glower away to level it at Abed instead. “What?” he snaps.

Abed takes his ire in stride, as always. “You need to go after her, Jeff.”

His eyes widen in outrage. “You think _I_ should apologize to _her?_ She’s the one—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Abed cuts him off. He leans forward, emphasizing each word with a finger jabbing into the surface of the study room table. “You need to go after her now, and tomorrow, and the day after that, and any other time that she needs it. It’s not about either one of you admitting that you’re wrong. It’s about being there, and never letting her get away.”

Jeff splutters for a moment. “What do you mean— Abed, we’re not— There’s nothing—”

Abed shakes his head and stands, shouldering his bookbag as he does so. He stops with his hand on the back of his chair and pins Jeff with his deepest, most shaman-y gaze ever. “You can keep telling yourself that, Jeff. But someday, years from now, you’re going to run into her somewhere. A mall, a gas station, a grocery store maybe. And she’ll be married and have kids and will have told herself that she’s happy, but she won’t be, and you’ll both know it, but you’ll also know that there’s no going back. There’s no way to reclaim all the time you’ve lost.”

Jeff stares at him, then swallows hard. “That’s… That’s ridiculous,” he whispers, but his voice is shaky and void of its previous vehemence.

Abed nods and shrugs in a kind of _take it or leave it_ gesture, and then turns and exits the study room.

Jeff sits at the table for another moment, eyes and thoughts wild, and then he lurches to his feet, grabs his things, and goes after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is dedicated to my parents, who are such real world versions of Jeff and Annie that it makes my head hurt sometimes. Thankfully, someone long ago gave them a speech much like this one from Abed, and now 30-some years of marriage and six kids later, they’re still ridiculously in love. <3
> 
> Apparently Kofi buttons aren't allowed on here, because while fanartists can sell their products on bags and shirts and prints and get paid for commissions, it's still somehow wrong for fanfiction authors to accept any sort of donation, even if indirect rather than actually in exchange for a product, but okay... 
> 
> Anyway, if you enjoyed this fic, come find me [on tumblr](http://jezunya.tumblr.com/)!


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